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Bolts Bedeviled Again

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 1, 2007

NEWARK, N.J. - The road demons that have haunted the Lightning in the early part of the season have still not been exorcised.

The Devils made sure of that on Halloween night by welcoming Tampa Bay to their new building in downtown Newark and beating the Lightning 6-1 in front of a half-empty Prudential Center that was announced at 13,218, the second game and first win for New Jersey in its new arena.

The checking line for New Jersey did most of the damage as John Madden, Jay Pandolfo and Dainius Zubrus combined for four of the six goals (three by Pandolfo) and 10 points.

The loss is Tampa Bay's fifth consecutive road loss to start the season, the worst road start in franchise history. After starting the season 3-0, Tampa Bay fell to 5-5-1 with Wednesday's loss and have been outscored on the road 24-10.

'We're embarrassed right now,' Lightning coach John Tortorella said.

The Lightning have struggled to generate many offensive chances, and it's not something that has plagued just one player or one line; it has affected the whole team. Against the Rangers, the Tampa Bay coaches charted seven scoring opportunities, and Wednesday it wasn't much better, in the neighborhood of five or six.

'We're fighting it offensively, there's no question,' Tortorella said. 'And our problem right now is we are not generating enough offense, and by us trying to generate offense we're forgetting about defense, and it has to be the other way around. We have to just play a good, solid defensive game and then I think our offense will come back to us. We have too many good people offensively, and we'll get out of this, but we have to do it the right way by playing good defense.'

And just like two nights earlier in a 3-1 loss to the Rangers, the Lightning were burned by a team struggling to score goals. New Jersey came into the game winless in its past four games, had been shut out twice and had four goals in four games.

New Jersey struck first - the fifth time Tampa Bay has allowed the opening goal on the road - and second within a 1:48 span early in the second period. Pandolfo won the puck from Brad Lukowich along the boards and freed it up to Zubrus behind the net. Zubrus hit a streaking Madden for a quick shot that hit Dan Boyle in the crease and bounced into the net at 4:32. On the second goal, Lukowich got caught in between trying to pinch in from the point and was behind the play when Zubrus lifted the puck to center ice. Boyle tried to swipe the puck but missed, allowing a two-on-none break that Madden converted by passing to Pandolfo at 6:20.

Lecavalier pulled Tampa Bay to within one late in the second to score the second road power-play goal this season for the Lightning on their 20th opportunity. Brad Richards kept the puck in at the blue line, getting it to Marty St. Louis. He slid a pass to Lecavalier, who fired a one-timer short side for his seventh goal of the season with 1:47 left in the period.

Tampa Bay came out in the third period with different line combinations and started to generate some offensive-zone pressure. But after winning a neutral-zone faceoff, the Lightning turned the puck over to Patrick Elias, who skated in off the wing, circled back and threw a puck on net that Aaron Asham deflected through the legs of Johan Holmqvist.

'I thought we had the momentum, then they score that third goal - it just can't happen,' St. Louis said. 'We have to score the next, we can't let them score from a neutral-zone draw, it can't end up being the goal that's going to take us out.'

From that point it just snowballed as New Jersey scored four goals in the period to turn the game into a rare Devils' blowout victory.

'The best thing for us right now is we have a short drive to Long Island and we can get going right away against the Islanders tonight,' Richards said. 'That's the best thing for us right now.'

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835 or eerlendsson@tampatrib.com.

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